A Movie A Day #42: Hero and The Terror (1988, directed by Steve Tannen)

Posted on February 11, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

hero_and_the_terror_poster Danny O’Brien (Chuck Fucking Norris!) is a tough Los Angeles cop who has been nicknamed Hero. Danny hates it when people call him “Hero.” Maybe if Danny knew what people usually call cops, he would not complain so much about his nickname. Three years ago, Danny captured Simon Moon (Jack O’Halloran), a neck-breaking serial killer nicknamed “The Terror.” After he was captured, The Terror faked his own death and disappeared. He ended up living in a deserted theater and not bothering anyone until the Mayor of Los Angeles (Ron O’Neal, Superfly himself!) decides to tear down his new home. The Terror does not take kindly to urban renewal and goes on another killing spree. Can Hero track down and beat the The Terror while also making it to the hospital in time to see his girlfriend give birth to their baby?

Not surprisingly, Hero and the Terror is one of the films that Chuck made for Cannon Films in the late 80s and, along with Chuck and Ron O’Neal, it features Cannon regulars Steve James and Billy Drago. (Billy Drago actually plays a good guy, for a change.) It’s obvious that Chuck was trying to broaden his horizons with Hero and the Terror: with the exception of the final confrontation between Hero and the Terror, there’s less kung fu action than in his previous films and a lot of the movie is dedicated to his relationship with his girlfriend and his struggle to handle her pregnancy. That’s all good and well and the Chuck Norris of Hero and The Terror is a much better actor than the Chuck Norris who could barely deliver his lines in Breaker, Breaker but, ultimately, a Chuck Norris movie with more human interest and less roundhouse kicks just feels wrong.

(On Netflix, there’s a whole documentary about how Chuck Norris’s roundhouse kicks led to the collapse of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist dictatorship in Romania. It’s called Chuck Norris vs. Communism. Communism didn’t have a chance. Hopefully, Chuck will never turn against capitalism because, if he does, it’ll probably lead to another stock market crash.)

I once read an interview with Gene Hackman, in which he was asked to name his least favorite of the movies that he had made. Hackman selected March or Die. “I can’t believe I was in something called March or Die,” Hackman said. If he thought March or Die was a bad title, he should be happy that he didn’t end up in Hero and The Terror. Give Chuck Norris credit. Even if he’s not Gene Hackman and even if the movie does not really work, he is the only actor who could credibly star in something called Hero and the Terror.

Worst of the Worst: Mad Dog Time (1996, directed by Larry Bishop)

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

Mad_dog_time_4841 Remember how, in the 1990s, every aspiring indie director tried to rip off Quentin Tarantino by making a gangster film that mixed graphic violence with quirky dialogue, dark comedy, and obscure pop cultural references? That led to a lot of terrible movies but not a single one (not even Amongst Friends) was as terrible as Mad Dog Time.

That Mad Dog Time was terrible should come as no surprise. Most directorial debuts are. What made Mad Dog Time unique was the sheer amount of talent that was assembled and wasted in the effort to bring this sorry movie to life. As the son of Joey Bishop, director Larry Bishop was Hollywood royalty and was able to convince several ridiculously overqualified actors to play the thinly drawn gangsters and rouges who populated Mad Dog Time. Much like the Rat Pack movies that his father once starred in, Larry Bishop’s debut film was full of familiar faces. Some of them only appeared for a few seconds while others had larger roles but they were all wasted in the end. Hopefully, everyone was served a good lunch in between filming their scenes because it is hard to see what else anyone could have gotten out of appearing in Mad Dog Time.

Mob boss Vic (Richard Dreyfuss) has just been released from a mental hospital. With the help of his main enforcer, Mick (Jeff Goldblum), and a legendary hitman named Nick (Larry Bishop, giving not only the worst performance in the film but also the worst performance of the 1990s), Vic is going to reassert his control over the rackets. Vic also wants to find his former mistress, Grace Everly (Diane Lane) but he doesn’t know that Grace is now with Mick and that Mick is also having an affair with Grace’s sister, Rita (Ellen Barkin).

(Grace and Rita are the Everly Sisters! Ha ha, between that and all the rhyming names, are you laughing yet?)

Anka and Byrne

Ben London (Gabriel Byrne) has taken over Vic’s nightclub and, while singing My Way with Paul Anka, tells Vic that he should take an early retirement because he’s a paranoid schizophrenic. Before he can deal with Ben, Vic has to kill all of his other rivals, all of whom are played by actors like Michael J. Pollard, Billy Idol, Kyle MacLachlan, Gregory Hines, and Burt Reynolds. The bodies start to pile up but Jimmy the Undertaker (Richard Pryor, looking extremely frail in one of his final roles) is always around to make sure that everyone gets a proper burial.

And there are other cameos as well. Joey Bishop is the owner of a mortuary. Henry Silva is wasted as one the few gangsters to stay loyal to Vic. Christopher Jones, who previously co-starred with Larry Bishop and Richard Pryor in Wild In The Streets before dropping out of a society, plays a hitman who pretends to be Nick Falco. Even Rob Reiner shows up a limo driver who talks too much.

Almost every poorly paced scene in Mad Dog Time plays out the same way. Three or more men confront each other in a room. Hard-boiled dialogue is exchanged for an interminable length of time until someone finally gets shot. You would think, at the very least, it would be watchable because of all the different people in the cast but none of the actors really seem to be into it. Richard Dreyfuss and Jeff Goldblum resort to smirking through their scenes while Gabriel Byrne often appears to be drunk. Whenever he’s in a scene, Burt Reynolds seems to be trying to hide his face and it is hard to blame him. There were many terrible movies released in the 90s but none were as bad as Mad Dog Time.

Guilty Pleasure No. 5: Invasion U.S.A.

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Arleigh

Time to put up a new guilty pleasure that goes way, way back for me. This flick came out a year after the ultra-violent, thus equally awesome Red Dawn. As a very impressionable young boy that film had me and my brother and a select group of friends coming up with ways to form our very own Wolverines. While our plans were really just an excuse to play war games in the playground it was the following year in 1985 when this latest “guilty pleasure” had my brother and I moving up to a new level doomsday prepping.

That film was the Chuck Norris classic bloodbath: Invasion U.S.A.

Instead of the Soviet military invading the U.S. mainland this time around it would be Latin American communist guerrillas led by a Rogue KGB agent who would be doing the invading. Well, invading the suburbs and malls of Florida at least. Just like in true exploitation fashion the film would use the fear Americans had of foreign terrorists (this was the era of the airline hijackings, hostage takings and cafe bombings) finally putting it in their heads to strike at the American heartland.

But who would stop them if none other than the poor man’s Sylvester Stallone. He was no Rambo, but his name has become even more feared in popular culture. He is Chuck Norris and he’s the country’s only savior against hundreds of well-armed terrorist guerrillas and the rogue Soviet leaders. For a pre-teen set this was a flick that opened up the imagination to new levels of violence (thus awesome playground wargaming afterwards) and epic action. It’s not a surprise that it would be the Cannon Films group led by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (proprietors of some of the 80’s best and most violent action films of the era).

This film has become a sort of cult classic amongst action film aficionados. It’s literally a film that puts on the action gas from the start and doesn’t let up. Even has grindhouse stalwarts like Richard Lynch and Billy Drago to give it some exploitation creds.

They sure don’t make action flicks like this anymore. Which really is a damn bloody shame.

On a side note: this is one flick I hope Lisa Marie, Leonard and these Snarkalecs they seem to be hanging about it to view one night if it ever airs on TV.